This invention relates to the dyeing of textiles, such as carpets, and particularly to improved apparatus for dyeing such textiles in random patterns.
It is known that textiles, particularly carpets, dyed with a single color with varying tone patterns, or multiple colors, can produce very desirable visual effects. The effects are particularly attractive when the tone variations or different colors appear randomly on the carpet surface. Apparatus and methods for performing such dyeing are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,683,649, 3,73l,503 and 3,964,860, and the present invention constitutes improvements in such apparatus and methods. In the apparatus and methods disclosed in the prior art, rollers immersed in troughs of dye are rotated to pick up a film of dye. The film of dye is scraped off the rollers by inclined doctor blades and the dye then flows down the inclined doctor blades through channels provided on the surface of the blades. In this way, the dye is formed into individual streams. The streams then flow vertically downwardly as a curtain of dye and strike a grid, moving fingers and/or stationary fingers which break up the stream into droplets. The droplets then fall onto a moving textile breadth below which is transported horizontally at a rate so as to give the desirable dye concentration, randomness, and density of the textile surface. To maintain random effect to the dyeing, the doctor blades and the grid or moving fingers are continually moved (by oscillation or rotation) so that the droplets do not form into repeating patterns.
In order to dye a textile breadth with several different dyes in one dyeing operation, e.g., four different dyes, it is necessary to provide multiple dye heads, that is to say, multiple units comprising a trough, roller and associated doctor blade, grid, moving fingers, etc. U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,860, noted above, teaches the use of multiple units arranged in serial fashion, each unit providing a separate dye color to the textile breadth and each unit comprising a complete assembly of trough, roller, doctor blade and associated droplet-producing parts (grids, moving fingers, etc.).
While such an arrangement can produce a multi-colored dyed textile product such as carpet which is satisfactory in visual effect, the arrangement is not desirable in operation for several reasons. First, it is expensive to provide complete multiple units for each dyeing application. Second, the individual dye head units are spaced so distant from one another in serial fashion along the direction of textile or carpet movement that there is an undesirable time lag between the application of the first dye and the last (e.g., the first dye and the fourth dye in a four-dye application). This time lag results in excessive penetration of the first-applied dyes into the backing of the textile or carpet where it is not visible and is wasted. This results in excessive and unnecessary use of dyes and makes the operation unnecessarily expensive. Third, the use of multiple individual units in serial fashion requires excessive linear floor space for the dye equipment.